for nearly
seven years to contribute to the public dialogue about, and practice of, food
security and food justice in Detroit. We continue to operate innovative programs
that grow fresh produce, train urban farmers, sell food cooperatively,
influence public policy, engage youth and address racism within the food
system.

Among our
many significant milestones achieved in 2012 were:

•Completion
of feasibility study for the expansion of our co-op buying club to a full service
retail food co-op store

•Installation of water lines and
frost-free hydrants at D-Town Farm

•Implementation of our first Summer
Urban Ag Internship Program

•Awarded
a $10,000 grant from Food Co-op Initiative to conduct community education and engagement
sessions on our food co-op

•Expanded
our 6th Annual Harvest Festival to two days and featured keynotes by
Urban Ag Guru Will Allen and Vegan Chef Bryant Terry

•Received the James Beard Foundation
Leadership Award

•Provided
leadership and helped to frame the issues in the struggle for land justice in
Detroit

We are
asking our friends and supporters to make a generous year-end donation to the
Detroit Black Community Food Security Network to help us deepen and broaden our
on-going work of building food justice, food security and food sovereignty for
Detroiters. We
appreciate all donations from $10 to $10,000. DBCFSN is a 501c3 non-profit, so
all donations are tax deductible. Your generous donation will help us continue
making progress towards achieving our goals.

The
battle for land justice heats up further with actor/activist Danny
Glover speaking at a meeting this Saturday organized by Detroiters
opposed to the proposed sale of more than 1500 City owned lots to John
Hantz. The meeting will be held Saturday, December 8, 2012, 6:00 - 8:00
p.m. at Timbuktu Academy of Science and Technology, 10800 E. Canfield, 1
block east of French Road, Detroit, 48214. Spread the word!!! We need a
heavy turnout by those living on Detroit's lower east side.

Category: Breaking NewsPublished on Tuesday, 20 November 2012 09:00 Written by Huffington Post

The name Hantz Farms conjures up strong reactions from many Detroiters
-- especially those involved with the city's urban agriculture movement.
After nearly four years the controversial development project,
originally envisioned as the world's largest urban farm, is scheduled to
go before Detroit City Council on Tuesday.
According to Marcell Todd Jr., director of Detroit's City Planning
Commission, if approved, the Hantz deal would be "the largest
speculative land sale in the city's history." In its current form, the
proposed transaction involves the sale of about 1,500 parcels -- roughly
140 acres of land -- on the city's east side to John Hantz, Detroiter
and financial services magnate, through Hantz Woodlands, a division of
Hantz Farms. The proposed area would lie roughly between Van Dyke and
St. Jean Street and Jefferson and Mack Avenue.
The businessman is seeking to transform the area into a mixed hardwoods
timber farm, pending the approval of a city urban agriculture
ordinance, but has also indicated a willingness to purchase and maintain
the land simply in order to make the area more livable. Despite these
changes, the issue
remains as contentious as it has ever been. While some see the project
as boon to a blighted neighborhood, others feel the businessman is
receiving special treatment and worry about its long-term implications.
The Bing administration has pushed to have the deal processed as a
simple purchase agreement, but members of council's Planning and
Economic Development Committee have asked
for a more detailed plan. Last Thursday during a meeting of the
committee, Council members Saunteel Jenkins, Kenneth Cockrel Jr. and
Kwame Kenyatta decided to put the measure up before the full council,
but requested that it be submitted as a development agreement with a
reverter clause allowing the city to back out, if the company violates
the terms of the deal.
"I support having someone come in and buy these properties who will
clean them up, who will keep them up, even plant trees," said
Councilwoman Jenkins. "[But] if the agreement is not to my satisfaction
Tuesday, if it's up for a vote, my vote is no."
Councilman Cockrel said although he has received a deluge of phone
calls and emails both for and against the deal, he was concerned there
was a perception of unfair treatment, noting that the Bing
administration seemed to be proceeding with the Hantz Farms transaction
despite promises it would hold off on urban agriculture developments
until an ordinance was passed.
Edith Floyd, a Detroiter who's been farming for nearly 40 years, was less measured in her feelings.
"He's getting a special deal. The city is not treating us fair at all," she told The Huffington Post.

Floyd maintains 32 lots on the city's east side, operates a greenhouse and runs a small business
called Farming in the City. Although she eventually got a temporary
permit for her greenhouse, she said that the city didn't make it easy
for her. She thinks the city should be selling the land to people like
her who have already been taking care of city lots.
"People with money can buy whatever they want and do whatever they
want, but other people can't do it," she said. "It's two laws: one for
the rich and one for the poor."
Greg Willerer and his wife Olivia run a one-acre farm called Brother
Nature in Detroit. He told The Huffington Post there is widespread
opposition to the Hantz deal among those involved with Detroit's urban
agriculture movement.
"I don't know of anyone who's supportive of it," he said. Like Floyd he
believes the city needs to support smaller farmers who grow food for
their livelihoods.
"It's really insulting. It's really frustrating. We have huge amounts
of land, and the city could sell a lot of this land for farming. If
you're not going to sell us the land, at least give us the land to lease
for ten years."
Citing the example of the Birdtown Community Garden, which was recently
destroyed to make room for a local business, Willerer said he felt
Detroit's power brokers tend to see urban gardens only as placeholders
for other types of development.
"They still want Detroit to be this Chicago-type city. It's not and it
never will be," he said. "There's a vibrant food system and it's kind of
exciting to see all this change going on. The city should help us or
get out the way."
Others like Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Community Food Security
Network are concerned about the long-term power dynamics of the deal.
"As we struggle to foster food security, food justice and food
sovereignty the question of land, who 'owns' it, who controls it, and
who benefits from it, must be in the forefront of our discussions," he
said in a recent Facebook post.
Hantz Farms president Mike Score told The Huffington Post that the
primary purpose of the deal is to improve the community. He said his
company plans on demolishing abandoned structures, mowing the grass,
removing trash and debris, planting trees and paying taxes on the
property.
"We'll make the neighborhood more attractive, more livable and, then,
also, by eliminating the publicly-owned blight, the private property
increases in value."
As for those who say the deal is a land grab or that Hantz Farms is getting special treatment, he says they're mistaken.
"It's not been an easy process, but we're not complaining," he said.
"We've been negotiating for four years and the expenses have been
significant -- and if that's special treatment, then I feel sorry for
everybody else."

Detroit: A Tale of Two... Farms?

Detroit: A Tale of Two... Farms?

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal
celebrated the Hantz Farms project to establish a 10,000 acre private
farm in Detroit. The project hinges on a very large land deal offered by
financial services magnate John Hantz to buy up over 2,000 empty lots
from the city of Detroit. Hantz's ostensible objective is to establish the world's largest urban mega-farm.

I say "ostensible" because despite futuristic artists' renderings of
Hantz Farms' urban greenhouses, presently John Hantz is actually growing
trees rather than food. The project website
invites us to imagine "high-value trees... in even-spaced rows" on a
three-acre pilot site recently cleaned, cleared and planted to hardwood
saplings. These trees, it seems, are just a first step in establishing a
200 acre forest and eventually -- pending approval by the City Council
-- the full Hantz megafarm.
In the short run, the purchase by Hantz cleans things up, puts foreclosed
lots back on the tax rolls and relieves the city of maintenance
responsibilities. If the tree farm expands, it could provide a few jobs.
In the long run, however, Hantz hopes his farm will create land scarcity in order to push up property values -- property that he will own a lot of.
The Hantz Farms project openly prioritizes creating wealth by
appreciating real estate rather than creating value through productive
activities. If successful, the urban mega-farm will clearly lead to an
impressive accumulation of private wealth on what was public land. It is
less clear what this will mean for the low-income residents of Detroit.
Despite two years of glowing national press coverage, not all is
going smoothly with the project. Under Michigan's Right to Farm Act, the
Hantz megafarm would pass from the jurisdiction of the city to that of
the state. Many in the city are reluctant to lose control over such a
big chunk of real estate. When friction on the issue developed between
the Administration, city offices and the public, the Hantz negotiations
moved quietly out of the public spotlight. But the wheels kept turning...
In a June memo to the Detroit City Council, the City Planning Department complained that:

It has come to our attention, due to inquiry from the media, and
communication from a representative from Hantz Farms that the
Administration is proposing to sell property
to Hantz Farms or some subsidiary for a project on the east side of
Detroit. Our office has not received any formal information from the
Administration regarding such a proposal; therefore, we do not know with
certainty the scope of the project or whether or not it complies with
current zoning and/or other City codes.

The potentially massive transfer of public assets to private
ownership (at a cleanup cost of $2 million to the city) has led many
residents to call the Hantz deal a "land grab."
Though the scale is unprecedented, does this real estate project
really have anything in common with the brutal, large-scale land
acquisitions sweeping Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America?
Land grabs in far-off places occur when governments allow outside
investors to push subsistence farmers and pastoralists off massive
swathes of tropical farm and range land to establish mega-plantations of
palm oil or sugarcane for ethanol. Despite the hype, very few of these
projects actually grow any food. Often the land grab is simply about
investing in real estate. Researchers studying the global phenomena have
not yet found any benefits for local communities resulting from these
land grabs. On the contrary, uprooted from land and livelihoods, poor
rural people are forced into the option of last resort: migration.
Notwithstanding, from Goldman Sacks and the Carlyle Group to
university pension funds, holders of big money are anxious to put their
wealth into land, at least until the global recession blows over. Cheap
land, devalued by economic and post-industrial recessions, is literally
up for grabs. Once acquired, the easiest and most effective, low-cost
way for big financial dogs to quickly mark their newly-acquired
territory has been to plant trees -- trees require little maintenance
and if global carbon markets ever really kick in, could pay dividends.
As Susan Payne, CEO of Emergent Asset Management has bluntly stated,
"In South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa the cost of agriland, arable,
good agriland that we're buying is one-seventh of the price of similar
land in Argentina, Brazil and America. That alone is an arbitrage
opportunity. We could be moronic and not grow anything and we think we
will make money over the next decade."
Whether the objective is to safeguard wealth, speculate on real
estate, accrue water rights, bet on carbon credits or actually plant
food or fuel crops, the point of a land grab is to leverage
financially-stressed governments in order to acquire large areas of
public land under a convenient global pretense (e.g., cooling the
planet, feeding the world or ending the world fuel crisis). This
supposedly benefits the planet by enriching few and impoverishing many.
Detroit's 2,000 city-owned lots (now on sale at $300 each), coupled with
a food security discourse, fits some of the land grab parameters.
But like most places around the world, there are people living in the
land of Detroit, and not all residents are happy with Hantz's plan --
which is probably why he has worked behind the scenes, avoiding
Detroit's Urban Ag Work Group, the City Planning Commission, and the
Detroit Food Policy Council. While some residents support the Hantz
forest, others -- like those working with D-town Farms, who are already
very busy growing and distributing food -- don't believe the hype. They
are opposing the Hantz deal on moral, political and economic grounds.
Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Food Security Network
noted that he was anxious to participate in more active opposition to
this land grab, and that given the Administration's disregard for the
work of the Urban Ag Work Group and the City Planning Commission, the
sale of the land to Hantz undermines real democracy.
These are strong words coming from one of Detroit's leading food
security advocates. When one looks at the trajectory of D-Town Farms and
the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, what appears as
indignant opposition is really a fundamentally different logic for
addressing the health, education and general welfare concerns of
Detroiters living in the underserved neighborhoods the city refers to as
blighted neighborhoods.

The Detroit Black Community Food Security Network is a coalition of
community groups that focus on urban agriculture, policy development and
co-operative buying. They have been farming in Detroit since 2006,
pioneered an 18-month effort to formulate a city-wide food policy
adopted by the City Council in 2008, and researched and proposed the
model for the current Detroit Food Policy Council. They have helped grow
an extensive network of gardens and buying clubs to address fresh food
access and employment challenges in Detroit's underserved neighborhoods.
Throughout, the Network held public meetings and worked extensively
with city leaders, local business, churches and neighborhood
organizations, as well with Wayne State and Michigan State University.
The seven acre D-Town Farm is a hub in an extensive community-based
effort to turn the local food system into an engine for local economic
development, owned and operated by those who are most adversely impacted
by the lack of fresh food access in Detroit's underserved
neighborhoods.
But recognizing that Hantz Farms follows a speculative and private
real estate logic and seeks to concentrate wealth, while D-Town Farms
follows a community livelihoods logic that seeks an equitable
distribution of opportunities and resources, still barely touches the
surface of the deep differences in demography, culture, socio-economic
status and political orientation of the two urban farming projects.
At the center of this tale of two farms, lies a contentious global
question just beginning to resurface in the United States these days:
the land question.
Land -- rural or urban -- is more than just land; it is the space
where social, economic and community decisions are made, and it is the
place of neighborhood, culture and livelihoods. It is home. Therefore,
it is more than just a "commodity." While John Hantz's stated objective
is to produce scarcity of the land as a commodity, residents living in
the lower-income homes of post-industrial Detroit deal daily with
scarcity of health, education and basic public services to which they
are entitled. The transformation of these public goods into private
"commodities," coupled with their scarcity has not resulted in any
improvement for residents. Market demand and human needs are not the
same, and one does not necessarily address the other. Driving up the
price of land in underserved neighborhoods may well put the city on the
road to gentrification, but it won't help solve the challenges facing
the majority of Detroit's citizens.

There are many notable, socially and economically-integrated projects
in Detroit that are already improving livelihoods, diet and incomes
through urban farming. It is difficult to see how these can flourish in
the shadow of a mega-project designed to price low-income people out of
their own neighborhoods. While private sector initiatives need to be a
part of any economic development strategy, unless the City's democratic
public institutions can find positive ways to address Detroit's land
question, it runs the risk of reproducing a classic land grab -- with
all its disastrous consequences.

When Malik Yakini describes the bumper crop of organic tomatoes, kale,
and salad greens that he and his team harvested this year at D-Town
Farm, a seven-acre site in a public park in Detroit and the largest
endeavor of the DBCFSN, he isn’t simply taking pride in the produce.
“The work that we’re doing is not just about food,” Yakini emphasizes.
“We’re planting seeds of consciousness at the same time that we’re
planting seeds that will grow into fruits and vegetables.”

For this lifelong social justice activist, transforming consciousness
means promoting self-sufficiency and building a sense of community
empowerment—all within the context of “traditional African cultures and
our own historical legacy of resistance to oppression.” To this end,
DBCFSN also runs the Ujamaa Food Co-op, a monthly buying club for
obtaining groceries at below-retail prices, set to open as a full-service retail store within the next two years.

Yakini founded DBCFSN in 2006 to counter a food system that has reduced
his city to what has been termed a “food desert.” Many Detroiters live
nowhere near a supermarket but must obtain “what could really only
nominally be called food,” he explains, from fringe food locations like
gas stations or party stores. “Since we’re faced with a lack of fresh,
healthy produce in Detroit, we thought growing our own food is one way
of addressing that. We see ourselves as creating a model that we hope
will inspire other people in the city,” says Yakini.

In the former automotive center of the world, 20 to 30 percent of
residential lots are now vacant, as thousands of unsafe buildings have
been demolished by the city. But rising from that rubble is a major
urban agriculture movement, with Yakini as one of the significant
players.

He’s also inspired by Growing Power founder and CEO Will Allen, who, in
turn, admires Yakini for “his commitment to improve the lives of all the
citizens of Detroit.” Says the 2011 JBF Leadership Award recipient,
“Malik Yakini is truly one of the strongest community leaders in the
country because he is unafraid to tell the truth.”

Yakini acknowledges that improving Detroit’s food security involves more
than creating access. It also requires a cultural shift away from the
emotional attachment to unhealthy food—which DBCFSN addresses with a
public education campaign that includes the “What’s for Dinner?” lecture
series and the Food Warriors Youth Development Program, which teaches
youth about problems with the current food system and the virtues of sustainable agriculture.

DBCFSN also fosters a localized food system at an advocacy level: it’s
the lead organization in writing the city of Detroit’s Food Security
policy and in the 2009 creation of the Detroit Food Policy Council,
which Yakini chaired until this spring.

Clearly Yakini is not slowed down by complacency. “I can’t really stop
and pat myself on the back, because the majority of people in the city
of Detroit are still impacted by food insecurity and food injustice.”

About the James Beard Foundation Leadership Awards
The 2012 JBF Leadership Awards recognize visionaries from a broad range
of backgrounds, including government, nonprofit, and literary arts, who
are working toward creating a healthier, safer, and more sustainable
food world. This year’s honorees were chosen by an advisory board
comprised of a dozen experts from diverse areas of expertise, as well as
last year’s Leadership Award recipients. Now in its second year, the
Leadership Awards recognize specific outstanding initiatives as well as
bodies of work and lifetime achievement. Winners will be honored at a dinner ceremony that will take place during the James Beard Foundation Food Conference on October 17 in New York City. For more information, visit jbfleadershipawards.org.

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

D-Town Farm’s Sixth Annual Harvest Festival

The
Sixth Annual D-Town Farm Harvest Festival
will take place on Saturday, September 22 and
Sunday September 23 from noon – 6:00 p.m. both days. The family friendly
event will feature farm tours, children’s
activities, “learn-shops” on bee-keeping, breastfeeding, gardening,
composting and a variety of other topics,live
music, food preparation demonstrations, speakers, a farm stand and other
vendors.

This year the festival will feature and arthors' tent with book signing by a number of health and food authors including Will Allen, author of The Food Revolution, Yvelette Stines, author of Vernon the Vegetable Man, Andrea King-Collier, author of Black Women's Guide to Black Men's Health, Ray Stone, author of Eat Like You Give a Damn: Beginning Your Lifestyle Transition and Bryant Terry author ofVegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African American Cuisine, and his latest book: The Inspired Vegan: Seasonal Ingredients, Creative Recipes, Mouthwatering Menus. For More info call (313)345-3663 or visit our Website at www.detroitblackfoodsecuritynetwork.com. We can also be found on facebook at Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

The Sixth Annual D-Town Farm Harvest Festival will take place on Saturday, September 22 and Sunday September 23 from noon – 6:00 p.m. both days. The family friendly event will feature farm tours, children’s activities, “learn-shops” on bee-keeping, breastfeeding, gardening, composting and a variety of other topics,live music, food preparation demonstrations, speakers, a farm stand and other vendors.

This year the festival will feature and arthors' tent with book signing by a number of health and food authors including Will Allen, author of The Food Revolution, Yvelette Stines, author of Vernon the Vegetable Man, Andrea King-Collier, author of Black Women's Guide to Black Men's Health, Ray Stone, author of Eat Like You Give a Damn: Beginning Your Lifestyle Transition and Bryant Terry author ofVegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African American Cuisine, and his latest book: The Inspired Vegan: Seasonal Ingredients, Creative Recipes, Mouthwatering Menus. For More info call (313)345-3663 or visit our Website at www.detroitblackfoodsecuritynetwork.com. We can also be found on facebook at Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

The
Sixth Annual D-Town Farm Harvest Festival
will take place on Saturday, September 22 and
Sunday September 23 from noon – 6:00 p.m. both days. The family friendly
event will feature farm tours, children’s
activities, “learn-shops” on bee-keeping, breastfeeding, gardening,
composting and a variety of other topics,live
music, food preparation demonstrations, speakers, a farm stand and other
vendors.

This year the festival will feature and arthors' tent with book signing by a number of health and food authors including Will Allen, author of The Food Revolution, Yvelette Stines, author of Vernon the Vegetable Man, Andrea King-Collier, author of Black Women's Guide to Black Men's Health, Ray Stone, author of Eat Like You Give a Damn: Beginning Your Lifestyle Transition and Bryant Terry author ofVegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African American Cuisine, and his latest book: The Inspired Vegan: Seasonal Ingredients, Creative Recipes, Mouthwatering Menus. For More info call (313)345-3663 or visit our Website at www.detroitblackfoodsecuritynetwork.com. We can also be found on facebook at Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

D-Town Farm in is a hub in an extensive community-based
effort to turn the local food system into an engine for local economic
development, owned and operated by those who are most adversely impacted
by the lack of fresh food access in Detroit's underserved
neighborhoods.

Detroit: A Tale of Two... Farms?

Executive Director, Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal
celebrated the Hantz Farms project to establish a 10,000 acre private
farm in Detroit. The project hinges on a very large land deal offered by
financial services magnate John Hantz to buy up over 2,000 empty lots
from the city of Detroit. Hantz's ostensible objective is to establish
the world's largest urban mega-farm.
I say "ostensible" because despite futuristic artists' renderings of
Hantz Farms' urban greenhouses, presently John Hantz is actually growing
trees rather than food. The project website
invites us to imagine "high-value trees... in even-spaced rows" on a
three-acre pilot site recently cleaned, cleared and planted to hardwood
saplings. These trees, it seems, are just a first step in establishing a
200 acre forest and eventually -- pending approval by the City Council
-- the full Hantz megafarm.
In the short run, the purchase by Hantz cleans things up, puts
foreclosed lots back on the tax rolls and relieves the city of
maintenance responsibilities. If the tree farm expands, it could provide
a few jobs. In the long run, however, Hantz hopes his farm will create land scarcity in order to push up property values -- property that he will own a lot of.
The Hantz Farms project openly prioritizes creating wealth by
appreciating real estate rather than creating value through productive
activities. If successful, the urban mega-farm will clearly lead to an
impressive accumulation of private wealth on what was public land. It is
less clear what this will mean for the low-income residents of Detroit.
Despite two years of glowing national press coverage, not all is
going smoothly with the project. Under Michigan's Right to Farm Act, the
Hantz megafarm would pass from the jurisdiction of the city to that of
the state. Many in the city are reluctant to lose control over such a
big chunk of real estate. When friction on the issue developed between
the Administration, city offices and the public, the Hantz negotiations
moved quietly out of the public spotlight. But the wheels kept
turning...
In a June memo to the Detroit City Council, the City Planning Department complained that:

It has come to our attention, due to inquiry from the media, and
communication from a representative from Hantz Farms that the
Administration is proposing to sell property to Hantz Farms or some
subsidiary for a project on the east side of Detroit. Our office has not
received any formal information from the Administration regarding such a
proposal; therefore, we do not know with certainty the scope of the
project or whether or not it complies with current zoning and/or other
City codes.

The potentially massive transfer of public assets to private
ownership (at a cleanup cost of $2 million to the city) has led many
residents to call the Hantz deal a "land grab."
Though the scale is unprecedented, does this real estate project
really have anything in common with the brutal, large-scale land
acquisitions sweeping Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America?
Land grabs in far-off places occur when governments allow outside
investors to push subsistence farmers and pastoralists off massive
swathes of tropical farm and range land to establish mega-plantations of
palm oil or sugarcane for ethanol. Despite the hype, very few of these
projects actually grow any food. Often the land grab is simply about
investing in real estate. Researchers studying the global phenomena have
not yet found any benefits for local communities resulting from these
land grabs. On the contrary, uprooted from land and livelihoods, poor
rural people are forced into the option of last resort: migration.
Notwithstanding, from Goldman Sacks and the Carlyle Group to
university pension funds, holders of big money are anxious to put their
wealth into land, at least until the global recession blows over. Cheap
land, devalued by economic and post-industrial recessions, is literally
up for grabs. Once acquired, the easiest and most effective, low-cost
way for big financial dogs to quickly mark their newly-acquired
territory has been to plant trees -- trees require little maintenance
and if global carbon markets ever really kick in, could pay dividends.
As Susan Payne, CEO of Emergent Asset Management has bluntly stated,
"In South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa the cost of agriland, arable,
good agriland that we're buying is one-seventh of the price of similar
land in Argentina, Brazil and America. That alone is an arbitrage
opportunity. We could be moronic and not grow anything and we think we
will make money over the next decade."
Whether the objective is to safeguard wealth, speculate on real
estate, accrue water rights, bet on carbon credits or actually plant
food or fuel crops, the point of a land grab is to leverage
financially-stressed governments in order to acquire large areas of
public land under a convenient global pretense (e.g., cooling the
planet, feeding the world or ending the world fuel crisis). This
supposedly benefits the planet by enriching few and impoverishing many.
Detroit's 2,000 city-owned lots (now on sale at $300 each), coupled with
a food security discourse, fits some of the land grab parameters.
But like most places around the world, there are people living in the
land of Detroit, and not all residents are happy with Hantz's plan --
which is probably why he has worked behind the scenes, avoiding
Detroit's Urban Ag Work Group, the City Planning Commission, and the
Detroit Food Policy Council. While some residents support the Hantz
forest, others -- like those working with D-town Farms, who are already
very busy growing and distributing food -- don't believe the hype. They
are opposing the Hantz deal on moral, political and economic grounds.
Malik Yakini of the Detroit Black Food Security Network
noted that he was anxious to participate in more active opposition to
this land grab, and that given the Administration's disregard for the
work of the Urban Ag Work Group and the City Planning Commission, the
sale of the land to Hantz undermines real democracy.
These are strong words coming from one of Detroit's leading food
security advocates. When one looks at the trajectory of D-Town Farms and
the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, what appears as
indignant opposition is really a fundamentally different logic for
addressing the health, education and general welfare concerns of
Detroiters living in the underserved neighborhoods the city refers to as
blighted neighborhoods.
The Detroit Black Community Food Security Network is a coalition of
community groups that focus on urban agriculture, policy development and
co-operative buying. They have been farming in Detroit since 2006,
pioneered an 18-month effort to formulate a city-wide food policy
adopted by the City Council in 2008, and researched and proposed the
model for the current Detroit Food Policy Council. They have helped grow
an extensive network of gardens and buying clubs to address fresh food
access and employment challenges in Detroit's underserved neighborhoods.
Throughout, the Network held public meetings and worked extensively
with city leaders, local business, churches and neighborhood
organizations, as well with Wayne State and Michigan State University.
The seven acre D-Town Farm is a hub in an extensive community-based
effort to turn the local food system into an engine for local economic
development, owned and operated by those who are most adversely impacted
by the lack of fresh food access in Detroit's underserved
neighborhoods.
But recognizing that Hantz Farms follows a speculative and private
real estate logic and seeks to concentrate wealth, while D-Town Farms
follows a community livelihoods logic that seeks an equitable
distribution of opportunities and resources, still barely touches the
surface of the deep differences in demography, culture, socio-economic
status and political orientation of the two urban farming projects.
At the center of this tale of two farms, lies a contentious global
question just beginning to resurface in the United States these days:
the land question.
Land -- rural or urban -- is more than just land; it is the space
where social, economic and community decisions are made, and it is the
place of neighborhood, culture and livelihoods. It is home. Therefore,
it is more than just a "commodity." While John Hantz's stated objective
is to produce scarcity of the land as a commodity, residents living in
the lower-income homes of post-industrial Detroit deal daily with
scarcity of health, education and basic public services to which they
are entitled. The transformation of these public goods into private
"commodities," coupled with their scarcity has not resulted in any
improvement for residents. Market demand and human needs are not the
same, and one does not necessarily address the other. Driving up the
price of land in underserved neighborhoods may well put the city on the
road to gentrification, but it won't help solve the challenges facing
the majority of Detroit's citizens.
There are many notable, socially and economically-integrated projects
in Detroit that are already improving livelihoods, diet and incomes
through urban farming. It is difficult to see how these can flourish in
the shadow of a mega-project designed to price low-income people out of
their own neighborhoods. While private sector initiatives need to be a
part of any economic development strategy, unless the City's democratic
public institutions can find positive ways to address Detroit's land
question, it runs the risk of reproducing a classic land grab -- with
all its disastrous consequences.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

It
is going down this Saturday in the neighborhood of Z8ne,Detroit on
Ferry Park st between 14 & 15 st one block south of west grand blvd
from 1-7pm. Please share widely. We will be distributing backpacks, two
per household. We are guaranteeing that every child will leave with
something!

This year Garden Resource Program
members will care for more than 100 acres of vacant land in the City of
Detroit, saving the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in routine
maintenance costs and investing at least as much in improvements like
flowers, trees, benches, and fences. Despite these heroic efforts,
gardeners and farmers that attempt to purchase the land they tend are
routinely given the run around, made to wait years, and sometimes
flat-out refused.
One of the reasons that residents are denied sales is that City of
Detroit zoning regulations do not allow for gardening and farming except
for in backyards or similar accessory uses.

The Detroit City Planning Commission's
Urban Agriculture Workgroup in partnership with the Detroit Food Policy
Council, many city departments, and community leaders, has been working
diligently to update zoning regulations and city code to allow for urban
agriculture for more than two years. These zoning and code
recommendations will be shared widely with the urban agriculture
community as well as the general public at community forums throughout
the summer and hopefully approved by City Council this fall.
Despite this timeline and despite the fact that residents who have
lovingly tended city owned vacant land for years are routinely denied
the opportunity to purchase land, it appears as if the Mayor's
Department is preparing to sell Hantz Farms hundreds of lots between the
Fisher St., St. Jean, Mack, and Jefferson for $300/lot.
To read a memo from The City of Detroit Planning Commission and learn
more click here.

Why should Hantz Farms get preferential
treatment? Please call City Council members today and request a fair and
transparent process to purchase city owned vacant land. If you've been
trying to purchase city owned land for gardening or farming call the
Real Estate Department today to demand equal treatment!

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Interview: Malik Yakini Is Changing the Face of the Food Landscape in Detroit

by Hannah Wallace

When he was seven-years-old, Malik Yakini, inspired
by his grandfather, planted his own backyard garden in Detroit, seeding
it with carrots and other vegetables. Should it come as any surprise
that today, Yakini has made urban farming his vocation? The Executive
director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network (DBCFSN), which he co-founded in 2006, he is also chair of the Detroit Food Policy Council, which advocates for a sustainable, localized food system and a food-secure Detroit.
It’s well known that Detroit has been hard hit by the economic
crisis—it’s unemployment rate is a staggering 28 percent—but it also has
one of the most well-developed urban agriculture scenes in the country.
Over the past decade, resourceful Detroiters and organizations such as
DBCFSN have been converting the city’s vacant lots and fallow land into
lush farms and community gardens. According to the Greening of Detroit, there are now over 1,351 gardens in the city.I
spoke to Yakini (left), one of the leaders of Detroit’s vibrant food
justice movement, about the problem with the term “food desert,” how
Detroit vegans survive the winter, and what the DBCFSN is doing to
change the food landscape in Detroit. “We’re really making an effort to
reach beyond the foodies—to get to the common folk who are not really
involved in food system reform,” says Yakini.A2Politico: Tell me about the origins of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.Malik Yakini: It grew out of some earlier work. I was principal of an African-centered charter school in the Detroit area called Nsoroma Institute Public School Academy.
In 2000 we started doing organic gardening on a serious level and
developed a food security curriculum. That initial garden evolved into
something we called the Shamba Organic Garden Collective, where we had
parents and teachers planting gardens in their backyards and in vacant
lots next to their houses.
We had a team called the groundbreakers who would go out and till
peoples’ gardens for them—because that was the most labor-intensive
part. We had about 20 gardens spread out over the city as part of this
collective. And as the work continued to grow, we were looking for a way
to expand it and involve more people. Informally, the Detroit Black
Community Food Security Network grew out of this work.
In February of 2006, I called together a group of 40 people who I
knew were either gardeners, chefs, raw foodists—people who had some
connection to food—for the purposes of starting the DBCFSN.A2Politico: One of the main activities of
the organization is to influence public policy. Is there a political
leader in Detroit who has become a powerful advocate for the food
justice movement and has helped push through laws that protect community
gardeners and promote food security?
Malik Yakini:The one who has been most supportive has been councilwoman JoAnn Watson. And councilman Kwame Kenyatta has been supportive as well. In fact, it’s through JoAnn Watson that we were able to have the City Council approve the Food Security Policy
that our organization wrote. She was able to give us the traction we
needed to get the City Council to appoint members of the Detroit Food
Policy Council.A2Politico: What policy goals are the DBCFSN working on right now?
Malik Yakini: The big issue right now in Detroit is creating
ordinances to regulate urban agriculture. There’s a big impediment and
that’s a state law called “the Right to Farm Act.” Essentially
it says no municipality has the authority to create ordinances that
regulate agriculture within their jurisdiction, because of this state
law that supersedes it. Just last week therewas a bill introduced
to the Michigan house to exempt Detroit from the Michigan Right to Farm
Act, which was passed in the early 1980s. It was passed to protect
rural farmers from suburban sprawl and from complaints from people who
were moving into rural areas where farming was taking place, who wanted
it to be like a city. So the law was to protect the farmers, but it
didn’t anticipate the urban agriculture movement we have now.
At this point, our policy work is primarily done through our
involvement in the Detroit Food Policy Council. Our farm manager is a
member of the Michigan Food Policy Council. So we are trying to move policy forward through our involvement in those two organizations.A2Politico: Do you think there’s a chance the Michigan legislature will pass this bill?
Malik Yakini: It’s a question of building the proper coalition on a
statewide level. We have to find a way to get enough Michigan state
legislators to vote for that exemption. But that’s challenging because
Michigan is a very large agricultural state. In fact, it has the
greatest diversity of crops outside of California. But most of what is
grown in Michigan, like every other state in the United States, is corn
and soybeans. And so these corn and soy farmers are not the natural
allies of the sustainable ag folks in Detroit. It’s gonna take some
networking across traditional interests in order to build the kind of
support politically that we’d need to get an exemption.
Flint and Grand Rapids have very large urban ag movements, too, and
they’re handcuffed in the same way. So there are some natural allies out
there. But in order to move this thing forward we have to have some
allies in rural Michigan—the traditional farmers.A2Politico: Does that mean that urban farmers in Detroit are technically defying the law right now?
Malik Yakini: There’s a woman on the Food Policy Council who is an
employee of the City Planning Commission. She says there are some things
that are illegal and some things that are unlawful. It’s illegal to
have farm animals like cows in the city of Detroit—there’s a law
prohibiting that. But there are other things like bees that the law
doesn’t speak to specifically. So there’s no law that permits it and
there’s also not a law that prohibits it. It’s not lawful but it’s not
illegal. So we’re kind of caught in this grey area right now.
It’s been estimated that Detroit has about 6,000-10,000 acres that
are vacant—that’s about a third of the city. So you have a lot of
commercial interests beginning to look at Detroit as a place to do
agriculture. Because the city doesn’t have the ability to regulate it
right now, we don’t have the ability to say to these large commercial
interests that we don’t feel that this scale of agriculture is
appropriate for Detroit. Getting the exemption from the Right to Farm
Act would allow Detroit to define what is appropriate in terms of scale
and in terms of things like composting.A2Politico: What about policy on the national level. Does the DBCFSN have any position on the farm bill?
Malik Yakini: Several of us have been involved in webinars and
meetings to bring us up to speed on the farm bill. But we haven’t
actively taken a position as a group.
We’re more focused on local policy. After studying the farm bill over
the last several months, I have a concern about what it takes to build
the type of support nationally, across various interests, to get
anything passed in the farm bill. It’s much easier to build that level
of consensus on a local or state-wide basis.
I think big ag will continue to get billion dollar subsidies. Some of
the things that were added in the last farm bill were good: Our
organization got a hoop house
from the USDA as a result. But when you look at a hoop house that cost
$8,000 and maybe there are 5-10 of ‘em in Detroit, that’s $40,000 to
$80,000. But then you’re looking at billions of dollars that are going
to these folks who are growing corn and soybeans.
So really, if we want to have a major impact on the food system in
the United States, the paradigm has to be shifted. So that sustainable
agriculture is incentivized and this unsustainable model of industrial
farming is dis-incentivized. The best way to do that is through money.
Of course, that is a big fight because the food lobby is one of the most
powerful lobbies that exists. And I really haven’t heard answer of how
you build the level of power, how you galvanize that level of support,
on a national level.A2Politico: The DBCFSN has a “What’s for Dinner?” lecture series. What speakers have you had and what are they about?
Malik Yakini: This year we had four lectures. The first was called
“Is my garden legal?” by Kathryn Underwood, the woman who is on the
Detroit Food Policy Council. She spoke about the laws or lack of laws
regulating agriculture in Detroit. The second lecture was a guy named
Kilindi Iyi and he’s a mycologist. His was on adding mushrooms to your
garden and the technologies of growing mushrooms. The third lecture was
the board president of our organization, Ife Kilimanjaro, and it dealt
with the global food shortage and how that is a man-made phenomenon how
it has been manipulated through these multinational companies that are
are controlling much of the food supply. The final lecture was one I
did on the impact of global warming on agriculture.
So this lecture series—as well as some of the other things we do—is
geared towards raising public consciousness. Because we realize that
it’s not just a question of greater access to food. But people have to
have knowledge about the food, and have to have some understanding about
why sustainable growing is better than the industrial food system that
provides most of the food. They have to have some understanding about
food culture. Because much of our traditional food culture has been lost
over the past generation, due to the rush towards convenience in the
post World War II period, and then the fast food proliferation which
occurred in Detroit and other places throughout the country. Our
families today rarely sit down and eat a meal that’s prepared from
scratch. So there’s a lot of education that has to go on in order to
support the growing of fresh produce. And creating markets in which to
sell it. We have to increase demand at the same time as we’re increasing
access.A2Politico: Is D-Town Farm the DBCFSN’s only garden? Or do you have others?
Malik Yakini: We just have one location. We started out initially
with two acres and we currently have seven acres—so it’s a pretty large
project. We’re trying to stay focused and not have various locations
around the city. Frankly we don’t have the capacity to manage that. Even
managing the seven acres we have now is challenging!
We consider ourselves to be a model. Rather than trying to start
gardens all around the city, what we’re doing is creating a learning
institution where people who are interested in doing this work can come
and learn various techniques and strategies that they can take back to
their neighborhoods. So we see ourselves as a catalyst.A2Politico: So the produce that’s grown at D-Town Farm—is it sold there at a farm stand or at Eastern Market?
Malik Yakini: We sell it at Eastern Market and also at a few farmers’
markets. We also sell to a few restaurants. We’re working on a project
called “Take it to the Marketplace” that will put some of our products
in grocery stores. It’ll be a producers’ co-op that we’ll be part of and
we’ll invite other local food entrepreneurs to be part of. But it will
sold under the D-Town brand. And we’ll collectively market and promote
those products, and collectively distribute those products. So that’s
our next move: to have locally grown options available at stores that
people normally shop at.A2Politico: Speaking of grocery stores, you said something
interesting at the Community Food Security Coalition conference in
Oakland: that implicit in researcher Mari Gallagher’sdefinition
for “food desert” is the notion that grocery stores are the only
solution to food deserts. In fact, what she and others including you
stress is that multiple solutions are needed—farmers’ markets, food
co-ops, urban farms. But don’t Detroit residents—even those who buy
their food from D-town Farm—rely on grocery stores in the winter? Even
with hoop house technology, you can’t possibly grow enough produce in
the winter months for people to be food secure—can you?
Malik Yakini: Not at all. We don’t even grow enough in the ground in
the summer to be self-sufficient. We’re producing a very small amount of
the produce consumed in Detroit—probably less than 1 percent. We are at
the embryonic stages. We think we have much greater capacity. But we’re
nowhere near that point right now.
People are accustomed to going to grocery stores to buy food and
they’re used to these large, pretty pieces of produce. Often, organic
food is not as large and sometimes it has flaws. So we have to
re-educate people about the aesthetics of food and the nutritional value
of food, at the same time as we educate people about the value of
eating whole foods.
We’re not self-sufficient even in the summer time—less so in the
winter. We are producing food in the winter using hoop house technology,
but of course you can only grow limited crops in the winter using hoop
houses unless you have some external heating source. People are
primarily growing salad greens, collards, kale, and things like that.
They clearly aren’t growing peppers, tomatoes, and squash in the winter
in hoop houses.A2Politico: Without a full-service grocery store, where do
you find sustainable dairy, meat, or bread? Does Detroit have any meat
CSAs?
Malik Yakini: Because I’m a vegan, I haven’t done a lot of
investigation about sources for eating meat and dairy. Although that’s
my personal dietary preference, that’s clearly not the dietary
preference of the majority of the people in Detroit. So since the
majority of people do eat meat, we need to find ways of finding high
quality meat at affordable prices. I’m very ignorant about what those
options are, but that’s an area I intend to educate myself about in the
near future.A2Politico: But even as a vegan, it must be a challenge to
find enough healthy food in Detroit in the winter. Do the locally-run
bodegas in town—the “party stores”—have any fresh produce?
Malik Yakini: Unfortunately, many of us, particularly those of us who
are trying to eat organic foods, have to leave the city to find those.
I’m privileged enough to have an automobile. [Note: 1/5th of
all Detroit households are car-less.] I’m able to drive the couple of
miles from my house to get to Ferndale, where they have food outlets
that sell organic food. They do sell some local produce but of course
during the winter that selection is very limited. And so although I am
dedicated to eating local foods, I’m not able to do that to the extent
that I’d like to during the winter time.A2Politico: I read an article that asserted that Detroit and
Cleveland have plenty of corner stores, many of which sell produce. The
USDA overlooks such stores when they designate a neighborhood a food
desert. (They define supermarkets as grocery stores with at least $2
million in annual sales.) But don’t these so-called “fringe stores” sell
mostly processed food, liquor and cigarettes?
Malik Yakini: There are small grocery stores in Detroit. Mari Gallagher’s 2007 study
said there were something like 1,075 food outlets in the city of
Detroit. The vast majority, though, are convenience stores or what we
call party stores. The problem is that far too many of them sell food
that is of an inferior quality, sometimes at inflated prices. And the
sanitary conditions in the stores often leave something to be desired. I
don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, because there are some very
good independently-owned grocery stores in Detroit. A few. So I don’t
want to leave the impression that they’re all terrible. Many of them are
terrible. But even the decent ones aren’t selling organic produce. And
for me, eating organically is very important.A2Politico: Your friend Malik Shabazz of the Marcus Garvey
movement has been videotaping some of the blatant health violations at
“party stores” such as rat feces, and is reporting them to the
Department of Public Health.
Malik Yakini: He’s also finding meats that have another label placed
over the expiration label. He’s finding stores that are selling alcohol
to minors. He’s documenting all of these things. His organization
creates the kind of pressure and public scrutiny that’s needed to close
down drug houses, too. It’s part of an overall effort to create a higher
quality of life in Detroit’s African American community.A2Politico: In Oakland, you cautioned that racism is
prevalent in the food movement—that some white food activists will come
into an African American community and tell them what to do. Can you
give an example of a white food justice organization in Detroit who is a
good ally of the DBCFSN, who works with you in a collaborative way?
Malik Yakini: The main ally we have is Earthworks Urban Farm. The manger there is Patrick Crouch. We do quite a few things together including participating in the “Undoing Racism in the Detroit Food System” initiative. They are probably our best predominantly white allies.A2Politico: One of the goals of the DBCFSN is to promote
healthy eating habits amongst Detroit’s youth. Any tips on how to do
this? Kids can be tough critics.
Malik Yakini: When children are involved in growing food, they feel a
sense of ownership. Like, “I grew that carrot, I planted those seeds.”
That’s a big incentive right there. But also just bringing in fresh
greens and having the kids taste them. Typically they enjoy it—they like
it.
We have a youth program called Food Warriors youth development
program that functions at Nsoroma. Also, there is a food security
curriculum that’s woven into the fabric of the school. Every teacher
has to have one lesson per week that has a food security tie-in. We look
at food security in a very broad sense, not just in terms of providing
access to food but we look at all aspects of the food system. With some
of the younger children, rather than inundate them with a lot of theory,
their food security lessons are more hands on. Preparing things,
tasting them. Exposing them to foods that they don’t normally eat.
Healthy eating is part of the culture at the school—and it has been
for some time. Gum, candy, and soda pop are not allowed in the building
at all—either by students, staff, or parents. That’s been a
long-standing policy. There’s a catering company that provides lunch
every day. So we have whole grains—no white rice is served—it’s always
brown rice. There’s no red meat served. And so we’ve created a cultural
environment that is supportive of healthy eating. So the Food Warriors
are building on a culture that already exists in the school.A2Politico: What about public schools in Detroit? Are there people putting pressure on them to improve their food?
Malik Yakini: The food service director of Detroit Public Schools,
Betti Wiggins, is very progressive. She was recently elected to the
Detroit Food Policy Council and she’s very active in the food movement.
She has reached out to local growers. Of course she’s working for a
bureaucracy that slows down what she’d like to do. But there couldn’t be
a better person in place pushing for this to happen.
She is involved in the farm-to-school movement and has piloted that
in several schools in Detroit, and has encouraged several schools to
start gardens. So she is a very strong ally in this movement.A2Politico: What do you think of entrepreneur John Hantz, and this ambitious plan he has to create “the largest urban farm” in Detroit?
Malik Yakini: That is the inevitable question. All interviews lead to that question.
I find it to be problematic for several reasons. The first reason is
because the city is 77% African American (according to the latest
Census Data), and the key players in the Hantz project are white men.
That’s problematic.
Secondly, they are not committed to organic agriculture. They propose
some type of mixture of the traditional industrial farming model and
sustainable techniques.
Thirdly—and most alarmingly—they don’t have any sense of using urban
agriculture to empower communities. They are driven by the profit
motive. The current urban ag movement is clearly steeped within the
social justice movement and clearly is trying to empower people,
communities, and community organizations. And none of that is on the
radar of the Hantz project. So that is very troubling.
Although Mr. Hantz is proposing this very large farm, what a lot of
people don’t know is that he’s proposing that only ten percent of what
he grows is produce. The rest is Christmas trees! Most people think he’s
going to have thousands of acres of tomatoes and peppers and lettuce,
but that’s not the case.
Mr. Hantz has also said that really what he’s trying to do is create
scarcity, thereby driving up the value of the land. At a public forum,
someone said to him, “Well that sounds like a land grab.” And he said,
“Yes, it is a land grab.” That’s another problem. There are major
questions around use and ownership of land. And how land serves the
common good as opposed as trying to serve the interests of wealthy
individuals who are trying to make a profit.A2Politico: Has he reached out to the black community in Detroit in any way?
Malik Yakini: After much criticism, there has been some reaching out
to community members. But it seems to be an afterthought, after he
received so much criticism. He’s also made overtures to me. I’ve been
involved in a couple discussions about trying to sit down with him to
understand more fully what he wants to do.
I have a good relationship with Mike Score, who is the president of
Hantz Farms. Mike is the person who is leading the farm effort right
now. He’s a legitimate farmer and an honorable human being with a very
high level integrity. He and I have talked about trying to set up a
meeting with Mr. Hantz and some of the key people in the urban ag
movement. But Hantz has been resistant to meeting with a group of
people.A2Politico: You were awarded a two-year fellowship with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. Do you mind my asking how you’re spending the $35,000 stipend? What project or projects are you working on?

Malik Yakini: I proposed a project called Be Black & Green.
What I’m doing is video documentation of black farmers, gardeners and
food activists throughout the country. I just posted an interview with
David Hilliard (of the Black Panthers) that I shot in Oakland, and I
have five others in the can that I’ll be posting soon. What I’m doing is
creating a network of black farmers, gardeners and food activists so
they can know each other. I’m also raising the profile of black farmers,
gardeners, and food activists in the larger food movement.
We want to assert that black people have always been involved in
agriculture in this country and we’ve always been involved in
sustainable agriculture. And that we have as much claim to this movement
as anybody else does. And so by telling these stories and really
allowing others to tell their own stories, and raising the profile of of
black people doing this work, I hope to help people understand the role
that we play in this movement historically.A2Politico: It’s out of the bag: kale is your favorite food. What’s your preferred way of preparing it?
Malik Yakini: Raw kale salad. I’m just addicted to it. I serve it
with a special dressing: toasted sesame seed oil, nutritional yeast,
cayenne pepper—those are three of the main ingredients. I can’t tell you
the rest of the ingredients, but I can say that people really seem to
like it.A2Politico: What’s your definition of food justice?
Malik Yakini: Food justice is people being treated justly by all of
the venues that they interact with to obtain food. The other part of
food justice has to do with economic justice: that when people spend
money on food, they need to derive some benefits from the money that
they spend beside just trading food for money.
The money that they spend on food needs to enrich their community. In
too many cases, we have wealth extraction strategies—where people spend
money in their communities on food and money is taken out of their
communities and creates jobs and wealth in other communities. So part of
food justice is circulating the money that people spend on food in
their community for their own benefit. It also has to do with simple
things like people being spoken to respectfully at the places that they
go to purchase food, with their human dignity being upheld. Having equal
access to good food sources—that’s a big part of food justice. So I
would say, the access piece is key, upholding peoples‘ dignity is key,
and the economic justice part of it is key.